Life would be so much easier if we could have our tracks covered, don’t you think? Well, Alibila is a French company provided just such a service. If you can read French check out the different alibis on offer (quite a range!).

Among the first on Alibila’s books was a man who wanted to join his mistress on a tropical island without his wife suspecting. A fake wedding invitation from a distant cousin did the trick. Nineteen euros buys a phone call to the matrimonial home. Thus when Geraldine, a driving-school boss, received a call supposedly from a pupil in need of an urgent lesson, her husband carried on watching TV blissfully unaware that she was off to catch up with an old flame.

However, even Alibila draws some lines:

“But hang on, we never deliver forged documents,” the agency’s director, Regine Mourizard, warned in Le Parisien. “We provide for our clients only those elements necessary to help them organise their private lies.”

Nice pun. Not so nice point.

They’re not the only one – if you’re in Dubai but need a phone call to look as though it’s coming from Tokyo, you can easily check out the Alibi Network, proudly declaring that it is internationally recognized as the top internet alibi agency.

Then presumably after the deed is done and you feel a bit guilty (which is of course so unhealthy and detrimental to one’s personal development), you can always then turn to an online confessional. Easy, quick and discreet. What more could you want?

Of course, to be fair, the sites here offering their services are not (hopefully) in it for profit but are mainly churches finding new outlets. Ok. But the comment was quite revealing (bearing in mind that it stems from a Catholic culture of confessional and penance)

New technology is fuelling the boom, but so is clever marketing by Churches that are portraying confession as a form of self-improvement — always popular with Americans — rather than some sort of punishment.